Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Jun 29;19(13):7965.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph19137965.

The Declining Trend in Adolescent Drinking: Do Volume and Drinking Pattern Go Hand in Hand?

Ingeborg Rossow  1 , Elin K Bye  1 , Inger Synnøve Moan  1
Affiliations

The Declining Trend in Adolescent Drinking: Do Volume and Drinking Pattern Go Hand in Hand?

Ingeborg Rossow et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Traditionally, adolescent drinking cultures differed between Nordic and Mediterranean countries; the former being characterised by low volume and relatively frequent heavy episodic drinking (HED). Across these drinking cultures, we examined the associations between alcohol volume and HED with respect to (i) secular trends at the country level and (ii) individual-level associations over time. The data stem from the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) conducted among 15-16-year-olds in Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, France and Italy, employing six cross-sectional surveys from 1999 to 2019 (n = 126,126). Both consumption volume and HED frequency decreased in all Nordic countries and displayed a curvilinear trend in France and Italy. In all countries, consumption volume and HED correlated highly over time at the country level. At the individual level, the correlation was positive but with a varying magnitude over time and between countries. In 1999/2003, the alcohol volume-HED correlation was significantly higher in the Nordic compared to the Mediterranean countries but became significantly weaker in Finland, Norway and Sweden and remained stable in France, Iceland and Italy during the period. In conclusion, while trends in consumption volume and drinking patterns went hand in hand at the aggregate level, the association at the individual level weakened over time in several Nordic countries, along with the substantial decline in adolescent drinking since 2000.

Keywords: adolescents; alcohol consumption; drinking culture; heavy episodic drinking; secular trends.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Mean drinking frequency past 30 days, by year and country. All students.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mean alcohol volume past 30 days, by year and country. All students. Data for France in 2003 and 2011 were in part imputed.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Mean HED frequency past 30 days by year and country. All students.
Figure 4
Figure 4
HED frequency/Drinking frequency ratio past 30 days, by year and country. All students.
Figure 5
Figure 5
The average proportion of drinking occasions that were HED in the past 30 days, by year and country. Past 30 days drinkers only.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Regression coefficients for HED frequency on drinking frequency for the survey years 1999/2003, 2007/2011 and 2015/2019 by country.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Rehm J., Gmel Sr G.E., Gmel G., Hasan O.S., Imtiaz S., Popova S., Probst C., Roerecke M., Room R., Samokhvalov A.V. The relationship between different dimensions of alcohol use and the burden of disease—An update. Addiction. 2017;112:968–1001. doi: 10.1111/add.13757. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Shield K., Manthey J., Rylett M., Probst C., Wettlaufer A., Parry C.D., Rehm J. National, regional, and global burdens of disease from 2000 to 2016 attributable to alcohol use: A comparative risk assessment study. Lancet Public Health. 2020;5:e51–e61. doi: 10.1016/S2468-2667(19)30231-2. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Babor T., Caetano R., Casswell S., Edwards G., Giesbrecht N., Graham K., Grube J., Hill L., Holder H., Homel R., et al. Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity. Research and Public Policy. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press; Oxford, UK: 2010.
    1. Rossow I., Mäkelä P. Public health thinking around alcohol-related harm: Why does per capita consumption matter? J. Stud. Alcohol Drugs. 2021;82:9–17. doi: 10.15288/jsad.2021.82.9. - DOI - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization . Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health. World Health Organization; Geneva, Switzerland: 2018.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources